The National Civic Federation (NCF), founded in 1900, sought to bring business, labor, and civic leaders together to improve industrial relations. Promoted by Ralph Easley, a journalist and civic booster, the NCF was the successor to the Chicago Civic Federation which had organized a series of national conferences in the 1890s on issues like industrial arbitration and conciliation (Chicago, 1894), primary elections (New York City, 1898), United States foreign policy (Saratoga Springs, N.Y., 1898), and trusts (Chicago, 1899).

By June 1900 the NCF organizing committee had created a five hundred member advisory body that, Easley noted, included "only representative, conservative, practical men of affairs, Republicans and Democrats. No federal or state officeholders, professional politicians, cranks, hobbyists, or revolutionists." Samuel Gompers and John Mitchell were among thirty-one labor leaders who accepted positions on the advisory committee.

In its early years the NCF focused almost entirely on the mediation of industrial disputes, which it undertook through the conciliation committee of its Industrial Department; Gompers was the committee's first vice-chairman. The NCF gradually expanded its activities, however, creating a broad range of departments to deal with such matters as trade agreements, industrial economics, industrial welfare, women, workmen's compensation, and social insurance. While the NCF was most active during its first decade and a half, it continued under Easley's direction until his death in 1939 and then briefly under that of his widow, Gertrude Beeks Easley.